


By Any Other Name

by dogpoet



Series: Punctuation [2]
Category: Lewis - Fandom
Genre: M/M, purple socks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-12
Updated: 2011-05-12
Packaged: 2017-10-19 08:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/198657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogpoet/pseuds/dogpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was Robbie, Robert, Mr Lewis, Inspector Lewis, and Sir. Sometimes it mattered what he was called, and sometimes it didn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Any Other Name

**Author's Note:**

> > Beta by [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/simoneallen/profile)[**simoneallen**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/simoneallen/)
>> 
>> This story is a sequel to [Apostrophes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/194863).

Lewis didn’t like to wish for a murder, but a dead body would take his mind off the fact that his sergeant had given him what seemed to be a love poem. Well, Hathaway had always been full of surprises.

Murder did not arrive.

Lewis completed the paperwork for the Sansome case in near silence, now and then asking Hathaway a question pertaining to the evidence or the suspects, but he couldn’t concentrate. It was like being in primary school. He kept thinking about the last line of the poem: tenderly. The way Hathaway sometimes looked at him. He’d never given it much thought. Hathaway always calling him ‘sir’. Made him feel like a tutor. A tutor with a very bright student. Always ‘sir’. Or, when he was being facetious: Inspector. Never Robbie, or even Robert. And never in the voice he’d used to phone up Love Lines during the Sadikov case. That might have been a tip-off.

On another day, he would have finished what he was doing so as not to face it the next day, but the moment the clock slid over to five, Lewis got up. Hathaway glanced over, and Lewis leant his head towards the door. Hathaway needed no more than that. He shut off his computer and rose to his full height, sliding his jacket on in one smooth motion.

“Fancy a pint?” Lewis asked.

“We could pick something up and take it to your flat.” Hathaway reached into his pocket for his cigarettes.

Lewis felt his heart pick up a bit. Ridiculous. They’d done it a hundred times before. Hathaway often stopped by for no reason, and he just as often helped himself to whatever Lewis had in the fridge, then they sat together on the sofa, drinking. Lewis enjoyed Hathaway’s company. He’d never got used to being alone in the flat.

“Come on, then,” he said in answer, and they headed out.

‘’ 

Lewis felt like a poor investigator. Hathaway had always sat close to him on the sofa, their legs touching. Hathaway often leant his head back, relaxed, looking at Lewis half-sleepy, content. Lewis hadn’t paid it any mind, but it was more than familiar, wasn’t it? He and Morse would never have sat so close. And if a woman did, he might think she was sweet on him.

Hathaway knocked his knee gently against Lewis’s.

“Are you going to explain it?” Lewis asked, reaching for his jacket, which lay draped over the arm of the sofa. He took the poem out of his pocket and laid it on the coffee table.

Hathaway took a sip of his beer, eyes fixed on the poem. “What part do you want me to explain?”

“Are you the apostrophe?”

Hathaway laughed. He drank more of his beer.

“What? Explain it, then.”

The kiss came, sudden and unexpected, Hathaway’s mouth pressed against his for the briefest moment, then gone.

Lewis had never dated a man. Never kissed one before. When he was a boy in Tyneside, you didn’t do things like that, not if you valued your life. The words they’d used in school — _faggot, pansy, queer, nancy-boy, knob jockey, shirt-lifter_ — weren’t ones you wanted to be called. He’d got enough looks for dating the Egyptian girl. His dad had raised the roof, but Lewis wasn’t fussy that way. He liked who he liked, and that was that. He supposed this was the same. Times were different now; things that once mattered didn’t matter anymore.

“Sir?” Hathaway looked worried.

“I’m fine. Thinking,” Lewis said. “You could stop calling me ‘sir’.”

“What else would I call you?”

“Robbie.” Val called him Robbie. Growing up, he’d been Robbie. He thought of himself that way.

Hathaway shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” He called Hathaway various things: Sergeant, Hathaway, James. Jim only when he wanted Hathaway to know he was annoyed. Hobson called Hathaway Lewis’s ‘better half’ or ‘the dishy Sergeant Hathaway’. Dishy!

“‘Sir’ suits you.”

Lewis made an exasperated noise. “You just _kissed_ me!”

Hathaway did it again, this time for longer, his tongue licking lightly at Lewis’s lip. Lewis opened his mouth. Canny. Different to kissing a woman. There was more of Hathaway, every part of him. Took up a lot of room, even when he slouched. More forward, too, his tongue exploring, his hands grabbing at Lewis’s side, his arm. He smelled faintly of cigarettes and cologne. His smell. Distinct. Lewis realised he knew it, like a fingerprint. But everything felt different, and it had him off balance. He took Hathaway’s face in his hands and stilled it. Pulled back.

Hathaway’s mouth was open, lips shiny. He was out of breath. Pupils larger than normal.

Lewis could feel his own heart pounding. Not something he was used to unless he was running after a suspect. Unless he was angry. Or playing squash. With Hathaway trouncing him.

“I’m going too fast for you,” Hathaway said.

“I’m old-fashioned. And I’ve never done this before.” Lewis released Hathaway’s face. Relaxed back against the sofa.

Hathaway leant close, and Lewis angled his head for another kiss, but Hathaway only said in his ear: “Sir.”

That was the Love Lines voice. Lewis shoved him away. “Sod!”

Hathaway picked up his beer again. Lewis did the same. They sat, facing the same direction, in comfortable silence, thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder.

“At least Lewis. You could do Lewis.”

“Maybe.” Hathaway slid a hand onto Lewis’s leg.

“I looked up me name, once. Bright fame, it means.”

“Bright fame?” Trying not to laugh.

“Fame. Like reputation.”

“Lewis or Robert?”

“Both, if you can believe it. They mean the same thing.” He took Hathaway’s hand. Stroked the palm with his finger. “Something you didn’t know?”

“Sometimes I let you tell me things I already know.”

“Obnoxious sod!” Lewis suddenly felt like he could call Hathaway anything and get away with it. He leant forward to kiss Hathaway’s smile. He wanted to. Again. More. It was surprising. And good. Did that make him a shirt-lifter now? What had he been before? Skirt-chaser? Hadn’t felt like one of those either.

“My family live by the heath,” Hathaway said under Lewis’s mouth.

“Ah,” said Lewis, catching on after a moment.

Hathaway was still holding his beer, but he reached to set the bottle down. The gaps between the buttons of his shirt showed patches of skin. “And James,” he said, toeing off his shoes, “means ‘supplanter’.” He shifted his position and brought his socked foot up onto the cushions to nudge Lewis’s hip. Then he lay back against the arm of the sofa, one foot on the floor, the other still touching Lewis, rubbing gently.

That was an invitation. No mistaking it.

“Sir.”

Lewis sighed. “I haven’t got a chance, have I?”

“Would you rather ‘Bright Fame’?”

“I’ll take ‘Sir’.”

Hathaway was waiting. His tie was still knotted, in its proper place, but his legs were open, calling Lewis’s attention to what lay between them. He’d never even come close to this. He didn’t even know if he could. Well, of course he could. It was like anything else, wasn’t it? Anything else he hadn’t done. He’d been scared the first time with a girl, too. Younger then. More eager. Clock ticking in a different way now. He knew well that a day could change everything. But this was different. He wasn’t in a hurry.

He took hold of Hathaway’s foot and moved it into his lap. He massaged it. Purple socks. Typical. Hathaway shifted, making himself more comfortable. He lifted his other foot to join the one Lewis had in his hands. He understood. There was time.

“Purple?” Lewis said.

Hathaway glanced at his socks as if seeing them for the first time. “Lavender.” He sat up quickly to grab his beer, then lay back again.

‘’ 

Lewis’s phone woke him before the alarm. It was still dark outside. He rolled over with a grunt to answer. A phone call at this hour could only mean one thing: murder. People seemed to kill one another nonstop in Oxford.

After getting the details, he lay in bed for a moment. He’d slept well, contrary to expectation. The thing of it was, he didn’t like sleeping alone. He missed Val. He’d liked her presence beside him. The sound of her breathing, even when it woke him. It was strange to think of someone taking her place. Supplanter. No, not like that. Lewis wanted Hathaway there. Would Hathaway sleep in his bed? Did Lewis even want that? What did two men — well, he knew the basics, but what did they — ? Never mind. Stupid to think about it. It wasn’t that complicated.

He got up. Stared at the clothes in the wardrobe. Nothing had changed. Same shirts. He fished one out on its hanger, then padded to the bathroom, yawning. While he was shaving, he kept expecting to notice a change. Something. A different shape to his face. He’d find out when he cut himself with the razor.

But the cut never came.

‘’ 

Lewis’s feet left prints on the dewy grass. He stopped to put on the protective suit before crossing to the grove of trees where the body had been found.

“Sir!”

Lewis turned to see Hathaway approaching. “Sergeant. You look chipper.”

Hathaway smiled broadly. “I am. I half expected a pumpkin.”

“A pumpkin?”

“Glass slippers, rather.” Hathaway stepped into the blue fabric of his own suit.

“I suppose you’re Prince Charming.”

Hathaway smirked.

“Oh, don’t get excited. You’re still you. And, believe me, I had a good look in the mirror this morning, and I was still me.”

They walked across the field to the crime scene.

_the end_


End file.
